Free Mercury in Retrograde by Paula Froelich Page B

freezer, where she took out a bag of frozen peas to put on the angry red throbbing lump that was growing like a horn out of her forehead and attached it to her head via a black elastic headband. She then flung herself fully clothed onto the bed facedown and moaned, “Isshhhhhtarrrrrr.”
    The box-office bomb had, over the years, become a euphemism Penelope used to describe anything akin to hell. Penelope’s mother, Susan Rosenzweig Mercury, had a lifelong crush on both Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty and, in 1987, had been thrilled when the planets finally aligned to put her twodreamboats into the same big-screen comedy. While the critics had rightfully railed against the flick—which posed the affable odd couple as bickering lounge singers “hilariously getting caught up in a CIA drama on their way to the Ishtar Hilton”—Susan loved it with such fervor she’d insisted Penelope watch the dreaded flick with her at least once a month on their aging Betamax player for all of 1988. The movie left such an impression on Penelope that she’d since used the film’s title as an adjective to describe the worst horrors imaginable. And now was very Ishtar.
    Ishy ishy ISHTAR! she thought. You have no job. Not only did you not get the promotion, you got fired. Or did you quit? I think you quit first. It sounds better, either way.
    But, oh no, you couldn’t just stop there, could you? You lit the Telegraph on fire. And threw up on your boss. To top it all off, you’ll probably die from pneumonia by morning, looking like the demon in Hellboy.
    Five minutes of self-pitying cow moans later, Penelope rolled over and blindly fished her phone out of the pink puffer coat’s pocket and, as she usually did in times of unexpected distress, called her mother.
    â€œAre you nuts ?” Susan cried after Penelope blubbered out the details of her horrific day. “Rule number one— one !—and this is important: never, ever quit a job without having another one! How are you going to pay the rent?”
    Penelope’s mother loved rules almost as much as she loved the movie Ishtar . Rules made her life orderly. And there were a lot of them, a side effect of being a primary-school teacher who was inexplicably still married to someone with whom she had almost nothing in common, namely Penelope’s born-again, slightly paranoid, right-wing father, Jim Mercury. She felt rules provided stability to a world she often found dangerous and disappointing. They were her safety blanket.
    Susan Mercury also liked to number the rules to give them added authority. When Penelope was a child, there were the obvious rules: “Rule Number 4: no cursing at your mother—I don’t care what you say to your sister or your father but do not curse at me or I will smack that ass,” “Rule Number 15: No TV until after dinner— M*A*S*H or Taxi. Not both—TV rots your mind!” and “Rule Number 32: All boogers go in the trash can !” (as opposed to “booger alley,” which Penelope and her older sister Nicole had created in the space between their twin beds in the shared room). Later came rules like “Rule Number 214: Never date a man who is mean to the waiters, because that’s how he will eventually treat you,” “Rule Number 237: Never date a man with a van—only thieves and rapists drive vans!” and “Rule Number 112: Whoever makes dinner doesn’t have to do the dishes—so start washing or you’re grounded.”
    Back on the phone, Penelope, still sniffling and in full-blown flu mode, said hopefully, “Well, baybe you could load be sub bunny?”
    It was a futile question.
    â€œPenelope, even if we did have the money, you know damn well I wouldn’t give it to you. Rule Number 21: We’ll never give you a cent, but there’s always a plane ticket home so you will never be homeless. Would you like a plane ticket